Since any project might get big and complicated very fast, especially electronic music which might have lots of little things going on, is it a good practice to mix different sections of songs in different sessions? I want to know whether it is done by some of you guys or not. Like mixing the verse in one session and mixing chorus in different session? Of course after mixing them as we want we put them all together in a unit session and do our little tweaks. I think the downside of such approach would be you won't be able to hear different section mixes at once while you are mixing them. I want to know your opinion about this. I think this approach, indeed, might be beneficial since we might make more variations with more focus on different sections. Personally, I have hard time mixing large session at once, not only it is overwhelming but also I might not make that contrast as indeed for different sections by mixing them all in one session. I don't know. Let's see what you've got to say.

 

when i was alive, and we used tape and razor blades, we used to do it all the time.
so i guess it's fine...
that is if you remember where in the piece you're up to.
now, where's me scrimshaw?...

 

Yes, this could be indeed one downside.

So, you want to tell that it was not possible to hear all of the signals simultaneously and to mix them together on a mixing console?


No there is no reason for this. Of course it's "fine" but it's also not necessary. In a "mixing school" they definetely never do this.

 

TBH, I don't care if they do it this way in school, I mostly care whether anyone does it and if they've done it what was their opinion regarding the method. Of course, if you have powerful computer you might be able to run crazy big projects but not all producers have super computers with legit softwares that crash once in a blue moon. Most of the guys doing this for passion, or in process of learning new things are poor asf. We live with scene team releases . Anyways, I don't want to go outside the realm of question. I would be glad to hear other folks opinion in the forum regarding the question.

 

You can, however you have to be careful making every section sound the same, and it would be a real mess in the end. My advice if you don't have a very powerful workstation is to bounce as many tracks as you can to audio and mix everything in one session.

 

I have stated that with the mixing school because of this:

And if you have problems with your processing power then you can do this of course but you can also simply render all of your created signals first (it's called producing) and mix them after this in another project so you do not have all of your virtual instruments in the same project.

 

I wouldn't know mate, just sayin one of the ways things've been done over the years.
It's fine, everything's fine, whatever works for you, it's fine.
I've done stuff in all sorts of ways and conditions...
sometimes i was even sober..

 

My answer regarding mixing sections of a song in defifferent sessions is no, it's not a good practice at all and as Lieglein wrote you don't need a supa processing power. Use what u have, print effects, keep it simple.

 

man Maxe you ask some weird motherfucking questions on here.

I think you might be trolling or you just have one of those weird brains like alot of folk that fuck around on here but whatever I find it hilarious as fuck...

Fuck no you don’t mix in different sessions. If you have a problem with processing power record your midi track into audio channel (printing as @Kundalini said) and work from there. That’s what every top engineer used to do and still does because they prefer working with a saved audio track over midi(which can get lost).

What a weird ass question man just print to audio. If you do end up mixing using another session ur gnna have to render to audio and put in one session anyway so just render to audio in same ass session.

I think you seriously overthink these things...

 

Nah man! My goal for asking this question was not the problem of printing it to audio and call it a day and of course the computer processing power is NOT THE ONLY reason I asked this question! Just think about it a minute man! For instance, if I mix drums in a different session and do all sorts of processing printing it in that session then mix another element with it in another session and do all sorts of modulations, and repeat this process until I have enough variations, when I import stems in the final session, I will have all sorts of automation for that appropriate section done! Someone said that each section will fall in the danger of being different from the other one regarding frequency response. Well this would fucking good if you are willing to go through the whole session with automating EQ once and for all.
Just think about it. If you bounce your kick drums in one session and directly go to fucking final session of your mix, and do all shit over there, there is a chance you might not make that much variation than you would do with the process I am referring to.
You might be right I overthink stuff and that might not always be good, I admit it. But man, I don't ask questions for no reason or trolling. Please stop being toxic and let's learn from each other.

 

without me knowing much at how you go about mixing and all, it seems to me the biggest problem you have is you spend too much time on the steps you go thru making you experience earfatigue or something in that nature, resulting in your not getting from start to finnish of the song.

maybe you can change up the way you go about it so you get more time.
one way could be "do broad strokes first" and then add details, on "each pass/listen thru" following the "broad strokes" session.

or you could put on a timer, and time each task you do, too see how much time you actually spend on each section etc.
or you could invent some selfimposing limit, like: "Each task must not take more than 10mins" (eg. eq'ing a kick drum, or make the guitar tighter, setting up vocal reverb. etc. etc.)

what ever you can think of, that can help you improve.

 

If you are talking about mixing one song section at a time, then I think it's a cool idea and something that was done in the old days, when there was no automation on desks.

Here is a quote from Bob Ohlsson the legendary Motown engineer (Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder etc)

"We often mixed in pieces and spliced them together. This could often create unintended happy accidents that don't occur with automation. You couldn't possibly achieve your concepts so you were never limited by them."

If you are talking about mixing one instrument at a time without hearing the others and then go to the next...that sounds a bit crazy to me but hey why not, you should try everything twice!

 

First you talk about sections of a piece and later about the drum tracks. Sections are Intro, Verse, Chorus, etc, which of course should be mixed in a session. A drum track or drum buss is an element, a part of the piece which can be worked independently before the final mix. Please be more clear in your question.

 

Yeah, saw that video too. It's so easy to do it in Reaper with project tabs.